


from here on out and in every lifetime

by gorti



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Freeform, Multiple Lives, Past Lives, Reflection, Tragic Romance, angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29150568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorti/pseuds/gorti
Summary: In every lifetime he knows all too well that it’s a mistake to let the color amber slip in passing.
Relationships: Levi/Petra Ral
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	from here on out and in every lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Influenced by Bob Hicok’s poem, “Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love” because who doesn’t like that poem? I’ve read plenty of fics inspired by it and it gave me the itch to ramble aimlessly and ended up with this. I also wanted to incorporate the Ackerman lineage and Levi being able to access memories through Paths. He’s like a cat with nine lives but more poetic?
> 
> “When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,  
> in each place and forever.”

In every lifetime he knows all too well that it’s a mistake to let the color amber slip in passing. Stolen glances have never been enough to satiate the need for physical touch - to feel her skin, her warmth, to feel that she’s real, she’s here - because his memory fails him every time and in each moment they’ve shared, whether it’s a simple brush of knuckles, a comforting palm on a heavily burdened shoulder, or that one very rare, very treasured instance of a final kiss goodbye, it will never be enough.

His memories are shared between the different lives he’s lived across millennia, a phenomenon of being born with his lineage. He can’t decide whether it’s a blessing or a curse because some days the collection of memories serve as harsh reminders of what could have been. Other days, they are all he has, a safe place where he can retreat and remember her smiles, the saccharine sound of her voice, and the pools of honey that stare back at him. 

Reliving each life, each name, he discerns some connections, recognizes faces that appear in every life, like the tall, well-built man with blonde hair and strikingly blue eyes, usually accompanied by a loud, obnoxious brunette with glasses, and an even taller, gangly man who always had some nose or smell thing. They’d been called Erwin, Hange, and Mike, but also Irving, Helene, and Kirk, and many other names across different lifetimes.

Then there is a younger trio: a meek blonde kid, a mysteriously cold girl, and their rough-housing counterpart who usually got them in trouble and despite it, they loved him, gravitated towards him. Armin, Mikasa, and Eren, but they too had different names in other memories. 

There are plenty more of these faces throughout his recollections. In some instances, they had been his friends, neighbors, chosen families - other times they had been strangers, or simply non-existent. But there have always been two specific constants that keep things corded together.

The first is her, forever unwavering throughout his many lives, quite fitting for someone whose name meant ‘rock’ or ‘stone’, someone he can never dislodge even when she had not been called ‘Petra’ in some instances. Her coloring always fills his view, amber and honey that makes his heart wrench, sets his blood humming. An immediate reaction that he cannot explain yet accepts as a natural one. 

The second is the yearning because all of these memories branch from one single core. He thinks it is the main one, the first life, the one that failed and kick-started this, shattering his memories in a web of moments, chances. Yet, in every single one, he fails.

It had taken him a handful of lives to realize what was happening at first, a couple more to accept that there was something he needed to do, and another handful of failures to come to the conclusion that these were not chances but rather a neverending hell, one particularly built for him. An existence where he’s bound to hunger over some impossible dream.

Because he remembers the blood on his hands from that very first life, remembers how he failed to acknowledge her love, then failed to protect her, failed to protect _them_ , he failed, failed, failed. Even in the wake of saving humanity from its ultimate demise at the hands of a monster, he’d sacrificed too much of his soul for it and this would be his punishment. To be within reach of one of his biggest regrets and have no hope of redemption.

He would ruin her and that is why the universe keeps them apart.

Despite it, she continues to be the sun and he, a mere planet caught in her orbit, her gravity too strong.

His first attempts at keeping her at an arm’s length away or further always resulted in some sort of tragedy, a repeat of how it all began

‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’

But when he finally allowed himself to get closer, his fears shackled him, keeping him hanging around that fragile in-between of accepting love and turning it away. He decided that those memories had been worse because the self-sabotage hurt in a different sense. It was being granted the chance to get so close only let her slip away in the end. At least with death, there was finality.

He can’t remember how many chances he’s had now, because some snippets remind him of the harrowing pain of losing her and he thinks it should be enough to learn his lesson but it’s simply not. 

Because now that he encounters her for the first time in this life she is crossing the street, groceries in one hand, a purse in the other and he concludes that there is nothing left to lose. Not any more. Far too many regrets have befallen him with her at the center of it all and he’s tired and weary but he jumps into the darkness of the unknown that’s been bestowed upon him. He had laughed once at how hypocritical he was for telling people to live with no regrets yet his many lives had been nothing but full of them.

In this life, will he succeed? Does a tomorrow actually exist where he wakes with her by his side and the web of memories and pain can finally converge into oneness, completion, contentment? After all the instances he can recall, are there ones he has yet to see, moments filled with her and the sun? With the same familiar faces, he holds dearly hoping in each lifetime they would be there too?

He has to know.

As he reaches her side of the street, the handle on her grocery bag snaps, and fresh produce spills to the ground. She makes a surprised sound followed by an exasperated one and he thinks the universe has gifted him serendipity.

He casually jogs to her and crouches to pick up a package of vine tomatoes and she visibly jumps at his sudden appearance.

“Ah, apologies,” he clears his throat glancing at her quickly before eyeing the tomatoes in hand. He realizes that his presence on this rather empty street may have been a completely unwelcome one, “I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just walking right behind you then your bag broke.”

She’s silent, too silent for his comfort and the moment stretches a beat too long. He curses inwardly thinking he’s already messed this all up. But then he gathers the courage to look up and hand her her produce, and the color on her cheeks and the way her lips are slightly parted speaks volumes. 

“I-I… No worries!” she starts a tad bit frantic but he can’t pinpoint why. “You-”

He tries to read the calculating expression that she wears but fails and allows her to gather her scattered thoughts. She’s probably trying to figure out a way out of this awkward situation he’d put them in, betting that as uncomfortable as she is she still wants to be nice because that’s just the kind of person that she is. In every life, she is caring to a fault. 

“I…” there 's wonderment and confusion in her eyes. “I know you.”

He blinks because this is different. Every instance before this they had always been strangers meant to meet by chance. Never had she thought twice about him, but now…

His throat goes dry and she straightens, the groceries on the ground long forgotten.

“I know you,” she repeats in a careful whisper as if coming to a full realization. She’s piecing him together right then and there. He keeps his mouth shut, not daring to shatter this delicate moment as if it would instantaneously dissolve at the sound of his voice.

He holds her gaze carefully, taking note of the shimmer in her eyes as she begins to blink back tears.

Slowly, she reaches out towards his hand, the one holding tomatoes, and places skittish fingers on his knuckles, her breath hitches when she feels his warmth, her eyes dawning with immediate clarity. 

“Levi?” she breathes in utter disbelief and as the sweet sound of her voice reaches him he feels his many lives colliding.

Another blink and she’s in his arms, her hands clinging desperately at the fabric of his jacket. 

“Levi,” she sobs into his shoulder and he firmly wraps his arms around her because she’s shaking now and he can’t fathom the thought of ever letting her go.

“Petra,” he mutters hoarsely against her temple, his throat tightening painfully. “Petra, it’s really you.”

She lets another sob bubble out and nods against him and it’s enough, it’s enough, _it’s enough_. It’s her, she’s here, she’s _here_ with _him_.

He slides a palm up and down her back both to comfort her and to solidify her existence in his mind, in this life.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she cries and he recalls all of his past failures, his foolishness, all of it that led him here, to this exact instance and he thinks it was all worth it. Every single sleepless night, every tearless cry, every broken heart, none of it mattered now that she was here and he would be damned to do anything but love her the way she needs, wants, from here on out and in every lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> This really was a brain dump of words, barely edited at midnight and my sleepy brain was like, "post it". I'll most likely wake up in the morning and immediately want to take this down. Hopefully, this makes enough sense to be called a story, but I had fun writing it nonetheless. Leave your thoughts!


End file.
